Hunger has gotten worse in San Francisco in the past 5 years, despite $48 million in increased spending

Student volunteers from Sausalito distribute free meals at Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco. A new report finds “food insecurity” on the rise.

Photo: Michael Short / Special to The Chronicle

“Food is a basic human right.” That was part of a resolution passed in 2013 by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors which pledged to end hunger in the city by 2020.

Five years later, food insecurity has only gotten worse in San Francisco, according to a 200-page report released by the city’s Food Security Task Force Thursday. The city has increased spending on nutrition programs by $48 million in that time period; yet the extra meals and groceries are still not enough to meet the needs of the estimated 227,000 San Franciscans who are at high risk of food insecurity, according to the report.

Chronicling statistics district by district, the report finds food insecurity especially acute among pregnant women, low-income families with children, seniors, people with disabilities and those in insecure housing. While the escalated cost of housing is the biggest reason for the increase, the issue overall is extremely complex, said Paula Jones, an author of the report and director of food security at the S.F. Department of Public Health.

“There are just so many conditions around food insecurity,” said Jones. For example, with low-income pregnant women, “There’s the food, but there’s also the transportation to get there, especially if you’re mobility-impaired in any way, or you’ve got a stroller and a toddler and are depending on public transportation. Those are all very important considerations as we continue to think about how to improve food security.”

Despite low unemployment and an increased minimum wage, the number of S.F. residents who live below the federal poverty level, which is $25,100 for a family of four, has increased by 13,000 since 2013.

Enrollment also has declined in the federal nutrition program WIC (Women, Infants and Children), and among children in CalFresh, commonly known as food stamps. And even people enrolled in those programs find the funding insufficient to counter skyrocketing housing costs that take up so much of a household budget, as a recent Chronicle special report found.

The city considers anyone who lives below twice the federal poverty level to be at high risk of food insecurity. That amounts to roughly 227,000 San Franciscans, including 28 percent of children 17 and under, and 36 percent of adults 65 and over.

Other groups that are disproportionately at risk of hunger are “transitional youth,” including college students, aged 18-24, and African Americans, American Indians and Pacific Islanders.

To combat the problem, the city in 2014 began bolstering spending on nutrition programs, by almost $5 million, and has increased the budget each year since. For the current fiscal year, food security funding makes up $14.4 million of the city’s overall budget of $11 billion.

One of the main increases has been in spending on meals for seniors and people with disabilities.

“What we’ve really tried to do is meet older adults where they are and where their needs are,” said Shireen McSpadden, executive director of the city’s Department of Aging and Adult Services.

“We go from the least expensive grocery model to the most expensive, which is home-delivered meals.”

About two years ago, social workers started doing food security assessments on the roughly 25,000 clients who receive home health care. Those at risk can now receive groceries delivered and prepared by their home health workers.

Home-delivered programs, such as Meals on Wheels, include food designed for ethnic groups including Asians and Pacific Islanders, who make up 40 percent of the city’s population over 60, as well as for Latino and Russian populations, McSpadden said.

“Food is so integral to people’s comfort, and the food that people are used to eating is really important, right down to digestion factors,” she said.

Since schools are where low-income children often get most of their meals, the city has also invested in meals and snacks served outside of school hours and during summer. The San Francisco Unified School District increased the number of meals it served by 1.7 million per year since 2013, mostly by adding suppers and breakfasts.

The report recommends enrolling more residents who qualify for CalFresh and WIC. Only 66 percent of eligible San Franciscans received CalFresh in 2016, compared to 85 percent nationwide. Enrollment in WIC decreased by almost a third over five years, even though the same number of children qualified for the program.

The task force, which also includes members from school district staff, food banks and charitable organizations, found other barriers to resolving hunger.

Over 21,000 of the housing units in the city, or 6 percent, don’t have kitchens, such as single-room-occupancy hotels. That makes it difficult for those residents to use the free groceries from the food pantry or to take advantage of CalFresh to buy low-cost groceries and cook their own meals.

Tara Duggan has written for the San Francisco Chronicle since 1999, starting out as a culinary intern in the Food & Wine department’s test kitchen. A food writer and recipe developer, she covers home cooking, restaurants, food trends, sustainable agriculture and food policy, all with a Northern California focus. A graduate of the California Culinary Academy, Tara also creates and tests recipes for feature stories in the paper. For 11 years, she wrote The Working Cook, a quick-cooking recipe column that appeared biweekly in The Chronicle. She wrote a cookbook based on the column in 2006 and has since written three other cookbooks.